This is not an official news source for CineForm or GoPro product releases, just some bits and pieces of stuff I happen to be working on. My work and hobbies are pretty much the same thing. -- David Newman

Saturday, February 28, 2009

Another Canon 5D Mk-II post, you would think I owned one, I don't -- Canon can you help me solve that? It is the camera's behavior that has caught my interest, plus the large video post market it is generated.

In the previous two posts I determined that the Canon 5D is using the full YUV range all 0 to 255 values. This can cause headaches throughout post as cameras typically use a luma range of 16 to 235, so it requires the operator know there is image data in the blacks and clipped highlights, and that the NLE can handle that information to restore it (many can't.) However, using the the full range offers the best tonal range for a limited 8-bit compression, and we don't want to lose that by crushing the range into the regular 16-235 as the CoreAVC decoder does with a user option (see the resulting spikey histogram.)

Neo Scene has a 10-bit solution. Reducing the 8-bit data from 255 levels to only 220 levels (with 16-219) something will always be lost, so we bump the data to 10-bit first, a 0 to 1023 range, then reduce that data to the 10-bit YUV standard range of 64-940, which has the precision to maintain all the source levels without introducing image banding. It is this 10-bit range-corrected data that we compress to CineForm from the Canon 5D Mk-II. By normalizing the Canon 5D data, the full dynamic range is now preserved in all editing and viewing environments.

We will be adding this feature to all our products over the next few weeks.

25 comments:

You have changed my life! I've had the 5D MK II since the beginning of Feb and up until now could not get the audio to sync with the video reguardless of what I tried. I would convert the video and then try to strip the audio from the original in audacity but the 30fps must have thrown everything off! CineForm does the trick though, now if you could just remove the line I've had in my video from day one! I've sent it back to Canon to fix it, and they cleaned the sensor and sent it back to me...and it still has a line in the video. I'm going to have to send it back again. Follow my turmoil on twitter http://twitter.com/disso_photo and thanks again.

You should talk to support as you likely are running the VfW codec, which has poor performance under CS4. We have a lot of extremely happy users, so it sounds like a simple setup issue. We are all at NAB this week, sorry that support will be a little slower.

Hmmmm. How does this help? We sold a damn lot of units, and receive a lot of good feedback, even for CS4 which still Adobe's work in progressive (4.1 is being shown at NAB -- looks like better memory handling.) While we can't garrantee every PC is ideal, we have a trial peroid that helps users determine if the product is right for them. Please follow with support if you what help, after NAB would be best.

I know this is probably beyond the bounds of this topic but do you know if it's possible to change the framerate of cineform avi's from 29.97 to 25 fps and what you would recommend to best achieve this

Hi David - I was wondering when we will see support for Adobe PrPro CS4 for MAC? It's a bit frustrating to see NeoScene listed on the cineform website as having "minor differences" between the PC and Mac versions - when there isn't any real support for PrPro mac.

I am planning to shoot a project with the 5D Mark II and am looking for an expedient work flow.

I've never used Cineform products but have read many good things about them. I've also been following certain industry forums, and have come across comments about how Neoscene does not interpolate 30fps to 25 fps without causing the inevitable judders. (I live in PAL land)

How reliable are these negative comments? Is Cineform really more efficient than freewares like Lagarith?

Neo Scene is not designed for converting 30p to 25p, it does convert to 29.97 automatically for easy NTSC usage. It also removes pulldown for 50i to 25p to 60i to 24p for progressiving shoot but interlaced encoded AVCHD / HDV sources. Some user confuse this to suggest you can go from 30p directly to 25p -- not a claim we've made. 30to25 is extremely difficult and compute intensive. For that frame rate conversion I would use Twixtor or Timewarp in AE. CineForm much faster and smaller that freewares like Lagarith. Download the trial.

I am looking at the HD Link in Neoscene, and there is this option that says 'convert to 24p, PAL source will convert to 25p'

Now we all know 30fps is neither NTSC nor PAL, so what is the default ratefor such an exported file? If it's 24f, it still means pp like me who live in PAL land will have to go one more step to conform the frame rate.

IS THERE AN OPTION THOUGH TO DIRECTLY CONVERT THE 30P 5D MARK 2 FOOTAGE TO 30P (NOT 29.970) CINEFORM AVI?THE REASONM I ASAY THIS IS BECAUSE USING SONY VEGAS I HAVE FOUND A GREAT WAY TO CONVERT THE FOOTAGE TO 24P BUT IF I USE THE NATIVE H.264 FILES IT CRASHES BUT IF I USE THE CINEFORM FILES ITS FINE

Canon Australia tell me that soon they will update the Firmware to enable owners of the 5D to change the speed of the camera from 30fps to 25 fps and that should fix all problems early in the New Year.

There are minor problems if the Expoort to Tape setting in Export to Movie is not changed. even then Cineform does not get it quite right all the time.